<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Unusual Case of the Twenty-First Hunger Games by Lightbringer34</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25272961">The Unusual Case of the Twenty-First Hunger Games</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightbringer34/pseuds/Lightbringer34'>Lightbringer34</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Cthulhu Mythos - H. P. Lovecraft, The Hunger Games (Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Other</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-15</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-20 07:54:37</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Graphic Depictions Of Violence</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,856</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25272961</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lightbringer34/pseuds/Lightbringer34</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Turns out District Four has even more secrets than Twelve, or even Thirteen. It tries an unorthodox rebellion, with unorthodox results.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>The Unusual Case of the Twenty-First Hunger Games</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There have been Seventy Five Hunger Games. Seventy Six, if you count the final culling of the Capitol’s children. And during the days of the Capitol, the Games were rebroadcast over and over to show the people of  Panem the futility of rebellion. All except one. The twenty-first Hunger Games.</p>
<p>All live viewings were canceled. Those who watched and remembered the Games were imprisoned, intimidated into silence, or shot. Most were hospitalized for insanity. Mags, the Mentor of the victorious District Four tribute, was interrogated and tortured to determine her involvement in the rebellion. There remains one single record of that dark, twisted week. Panem is a powerful nation, but it is young. And on the day of the Twenty-First Hunger Games, the Capitol was reminded of that.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>As with all stories that involve the Hunger Games, we begin with the Tributes: Owyn Marsh and Maggie Brighton. Their parentage was unknown, due to the First Rebellion, perhaps for the better.</p>
<p>The Hunger Games was still new in that time, still a fresh, oozing wound in the District’s hearts. The people of District Four, ever as free and as wild as the ocean they sailed, chafed under the heel of the Capitol as their sons and daughters died in the dust, far from the sea. So they cried out into the night, a wordless scream of hate and vengeance propelled by the bloody bodies of Peacekeepers. The blood dripped into the water and flowed down and deep, carried by tides older than Man. And their cry was answered.</p>
<p>That night, a contract was struck between the city of Ith-Ganhai and the people of District Four. Nightmares stalked the streets and white-suited Peacekeepers clutched their guns in fright, though they knew not why. The Tributes were chosen that night and together the very old and the very young returned to that bloody beach. They feasted and sang and reveled until finally, the ancient ones slipped beneath the waves once more. Now they need only wait for their vengeance.</p>
<p>So it came to pass that when slips were drawn, Owyn Marsh and Maggie Brighton were singled out once more, by a much less slimy hand. And they smiled and grinned in recognition, for what their elders had told them was true. They would be chosen for the Hunger Games, the bloodsport, and they would win.</p>
<p>They traveled to the Capitol in due time, with their mentor Mags and their representative, Crestus Croesus. Sponsors chattered on and the lights of the Capitol swirled around the Tributes like fireflies, brilliant and yet so short lived. And if Mags stayed silent, if she noticed the pallor of Owyn’s skin, or the wide grin on Maggie’s lips, she said nothing. Memory is strong in District Four, where the sand holds history, where the sea is old and strong.</p>
<p>Other Tributes stood huddled in fear, stood in blind acceptance of death, or strode confidently, sure of their glory. The Tributes of District Four simply walked in peace and silence. They made no special friends, no hated enemies, and produced mediocre scores in training, a 5 and a 6 for female and male respectively. </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The night of the Games, one of the Avoxes disappeared. Owyn and Maggie slept deeply and awoke with smiles on their faces and blood in their bellies. For today was the day of the Games, the day of their act of defiance. Preparations were made and the Tributes rose to the Arena as all of Panem looked on.</p>
<p>Owyn and Maggie simply stood there and laughed. They laughed as the clock ran down, as Tributes dove towards the Cornicopia, as the slaughter began. For the Arena was a vast ocean, with small barren islands, just as their elders had promised. Other Tributes swam towards them, seeking blood and death, but here, they were outmatched. For as everyone knows, the Tributes of District Four are born near the sea. But Owyn Marsh and Maggie Brighton were born with the smell of salt in their nostrils and the cry of gulls overhead, strengthened by the bond with Ith-Ganhai. The other Tributes stood no real chance.</p>
<p>The first day of the Twenty-First Hunger Games, thirteen Tributes died at the hands of Owyn and Maggie. Ripped to pieces with bare hands, choked and slashed by fingernails and teeth. The people of the Capitol laughed and gasped in shock and pleasure as the people of Panem stood horrified. Children should not be able to snap a bone like tree branches. Children should not laugh like that, with such a deep, guttural sound. Children, most especially, should not shrug off three throwing knives to the chest and decapitate the assailant.</p>
<p>Alone of all the Districts,  Four did not look on in horror. They did not even look on in celebration, save a few foolish young men who were quickly silenced. This was the preliminary, the beginning of their revenge. Children had to die and it was a necessary task, but by and large, they took no great pleasure in it. They stormed the watchtowers and tossed the bodies into the sea, more gifts for Ith-Ganhai, and hoped other Districts would rally to them.</p>
<p>And so it was that the remaining Tributes, Career and failure alike, united upon one of the larger islands, swords and supplies in hand, to destroy their opposition. As a Tribute from District Two put it, “we can get back to killin’ each other like regular people after those two nut jobs are nice and dead.” But their alliance was doomed to fail. </p>
<p>For the Gamemakers, in their ignorance, had made the arena with <em>salt</em> water. Owyn and Maggie, flush with battlelust and victory, dove deep beneath the blood-soaked waves and did not surface. They dove to the very bottom of the Arena, and the cameras could not find them. And there, among the silt and salt, Owyn cut Maggie’s throat from ear to ear and spoke the Names as the wound healed over.</p>
<p>It is not known how they appeared, only that they did. And despite more than fifty years of concerted efforts by Capitol scientists and Peacekeeper torturers, no one shall ever know. For memory is strong in District Four, and paths are always open to those who know the rites. </p>
<p> </p>
<p> </p>
<p>The creatures that surfaced with Maggie and Owyn could barely be seen by the cameras. They were huge, hulking brutes that moved through waves as through air. The Gamemakers had not created them and among the circles of power, there was a tremble of fear. </p>
<p>The Deep Ones walked the earth once more. And as hovercraft surrounded District Four, the ancient monstrosities turned the scene of gladiatorial games into a charnel alter. To them, this was a chance to appropriately honor their god and they took to it with the zeal of missionaries. The Gamemakers responded with all the weapons in their arsenal to no avail. Shark muttations were befriended or eaten. Tidal waves or typhoons were ignored, though they at least washed away what remained of the poor Tributes. When the sea boiled, they finally got a response.</p>
<p>The Deep Ones leaped out of the ocean with bubbling skin and howling in rage. With a gesture, they shattered the forcefield surrounding the Arena and began to carve their way through the reinforced steel. The President, now tired of this debacle, ordered in a battalion of Peacekeepers, armed to the teeth. After that, the tide turned.</p>
<p>Though the 21st Hunger Games had not been televised since the appearance of the Deep Ones, the people of District Four, now in cells and prisons scattered around the Capitol, all cried out in fear and pain that day. Several battered themselves to death against the bars of their cells. One woman bit her tongue off and choked on her own blood, smiling all the while. And Mags, deep within the Presidential Palace, sighed with relief as the life left Owyn Marsh’s body. </p>
<p>District Four was decimated, a fraction of its former strength. Many citizens threw their lot in with the Capitol, reasoning lives of slavery was better than what awaited them. Some of the “terrorists and conspirators” escaped into the ocean and were never found. Mags was never the same after the Twenty First Hunger Games and neither was District Four. Because although the Capitol turned the city of Ith-Ganhai into a smoking crater below the waves, they could not erase it entirely. The Deep Ones were, the Deep Ones are, and the Deep Ones shall be. </p>
<p>And even now, as Panem rebuilds itself from the Second Rebellion, as archivists and historians pour over the Capitol’s vaults and storage rooms, the Deep Ones wait. </p>
<p>And some members of District Four still swear to the lost gods of the sea. Because memory is strong in District Four, where the sand holds history, where the sea is old and strong.</p>
<p>_______________</p>
<p>President Snow stares up at the massive glass case slowly lowering from the hovercraft, attended by dozens of armed Peacekeepers. He is young, clean-shaven, and he still smells of roses and blood. </p>
<p>“What is it Corporal?”</p>
<p>The man at his side in the Peacekeeper uniform straightens at being addressed and resists the urge to look directly at the tube. He’s amazed Snow hasn’t fled screaming, but he swallows and answers his superior. </p>
<p>“We’ve finished loading the members of District Four and their…guests into the cryochambers. Subjects 01 through 15 are undergoing processing and interrogation now.” The Corporal decides to take the initiative. “Would you like to attend, sir?”</p>
<p>Snow shakes his head. “Not just yet Corporal, let the professionals take their time. What I <em>meant </em>was:” He gestures up at the <strong>thing</strong> in the glass tube. “What is that?”</p>
<p>The Corporal shakes his head in bewilderment and Snow can see stark naked fear on his face. “Nobody knows sir. But it chewed up or crushed at least half the town before we hi-t it with an electric bomb. Most of it squelched back into the ocean, but we manag-ed to capture this segment that fell off.” The Corporal’s face twitches violently twice as he speaks, but the man seems unaware of it. Snow studies him carefully then strides off towards the Presidential palace, where a fresh, unsullied squad of guards awaits. The President is characteristically brief. </p>
<p>“Take all surviving Peacekeepers for detainment and psychological evaluation.If they attempt to escape or resist, they are to be shot on sight.” The squad hesitates slightly at the unexpectedness of the order, but Snow’s face remains set in a glare of command. “Are you willing and able to maintain the peace of Panem, Peacekeeper? Or are you unworthy of your uniform?” There is a tense silence before the helmeted leader nods silently and moves off, hefting his machine gun. </p>
<p>Snow returns to studying the <strong>thing</strong> , ignoring the shout of suprise and short burst of gunfire behind him. <strong>It </strong>roils in its prison and the twelve-no, wait, one just vanished- eleven eyes roll madly around within, blindly hating all living things. A small smile finds its way across his lips. This could be the start of something new.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Catching Fire had a lot of emphasis on District Four, but beyond "The Bread District or The Electricity District, or the Grain District" we don't get much about the cultures of the other villages. Arguably just an excuse to inject the Cthulhu Mythos into the Hunger Games, I had planned to make a series about how each district contained a certain kind of Lovecraftian species/beastie and how the Capitol's Hunger Games were a preventative/placating measure, but it seemed a little too edgy and needlessly grim. Up to you if it's any good.</p></blockquote></div></div>
</body>
</html>